


All Day

by maaaaa



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maaaaa/pseuds/maaaaa
Summary: Written for Carodee's 2008 Moonridge prison fic challenge, where the guys are in prison but they are neither innocent or undercover.
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Kudos: 13





	All Day

Jim walked out into the yard, seemingly oblivious to the chilly mist that engulfed him. He crossed the area in long, even strides, eating up ground, putting distance between himself and the bleak stone walls behind him. He was soaked to the bone in a matter of minutes.

Dozens of convicts huddled under the steel awning near the door, stamping their feet on the cracked blacktop, jostling one another in the crowded space, and muttering about the injustice of being outdoors in the rain.

They’d scattered hastily as Jim shouldered his way through them. Some of them gave him mildly reproachful looks, but most simply turned their backs, wisely avoiding his attention.

“Stupid bastards,” Jim sneered. He looked back over his shoulder, casting a brief derisive glance at them, shaking his head.

Sentenced as he was to spend most, if not all, of the rest of their lives locked up, he found it incredulous that they’d let a little rain keep them from the few hours of illusory freedom being outside afforded.

He made his way to the far side of the yard, crossing the basketball court and grassy expanses, ignoring the other groups of men taking refuge beneath the courtside bleachers or whatever other shelter could be found. He stopped just short of the six-foot-wide graveled pathway that separated the big yard from the double row of galvanized fence.

Three men followed him into the yard. He knew this without looking, without hearing them, without smelling their distinctive odors. They always followed him, hovering nearby, watching. They huddled in a tight knot, shoulders hunched against the drizzle, with their hands shoved deep into the pockets of their heavy denim jackets. They shuffled their feet aimlessly, talking quietly among themselves.

Jim snorted, a mirthless, guttural sound, and slowly rotated his neck, popping the vertebra one by one with a satisfying cracking sound. Then he stretched his arms and legs and did a quick set of fifty jumping jacks.

The three men watched impassively.

The three stooges was how he thought of them. Larry, Curly and Moe. They’d given him their names once, but he hadn’t bothered to keep track of them, or who was who.

They were Native American, just like at least half of the prison population. Skohomish or Quinault, Nooksack, or Yakima maybe. The subtle differences in skin tone, bone structure, hair texture, even scent, were there, but he’d never felt any urge or reason to sort it out.

They knew his name. Everyone on the inside always seemed to know a cop’s name, even an ex-cop’s, but they insisted on calling him by a mush-mouthed, indigenous appellation of their own choosing, that sounded, even to his fine-tuned ears, like cock-sucker. Even when they said it in nearly whispered reverent awe.

They never said it to his face. Not after the first time anyway, when Jim had decked Curly and sent him sprawling across the floor in the rec hall. They almost never spoke to him at all anymore. Not with words anyway.

Jim was tough. Ornery. But he didn’t delude himself into thinking he projected enough badass vibes on his own to warrant the grudging leeway given him by other prisoners.

He’d been an ex-cop even before being convicted, not a distinction that mattered here. And he knew the life expectancy of cops in the can was low. That fact hadn’t fazed him; he’d been in covert ops long before being a cop. He knew at least a dozen ways to kill a man without any weapon other than his bare hands. He’d steeled himself from day one for some type of assault, planning to take as many of the scum with him as he could.

But it never came.

And it was because the three stooges were at the top of the pecking order here, for whatever bizarre reason Jim had never figured out, and they put him right up there with them. He knew they talked about him to the others that held sway with the prisoners. He’d hear them; speaking in their own language and every so often that weird name they had for him would come up. But more often it was just looks that passed among them.

Whoever it was they thought he was, he wasn’t going to mess with a good thing.

Jim shook his arms and bounced on the balls of his feet. With a brief nod to the stooges, he peeled out of his clothes, down to his skivvies, and tossed them on the ground, knowing without looking that Curly would pick them up and stuff them under his arm.

He took off jogging, setting a slow, thudding pace. He cut through the misty drizzle, feeling each and every fleck of moisture as it pattered his skin, quickly plastering his shorts and tee shirt against his body outlining and defining every taut muscle and tendon.

The mist looked gauzy, distorting his vision, hanging in damp wisps in the air in front of him and all around him. The smells of the prison yard were trapped in it; it was rank with the scent of cooped up men and their environs.

As his senses adjusted, he closed his eyes for a moment, wished silently that the rain would turn to big, clean, clear, fresh smelling drops, and kept on running.

After ten laps around the yard, he stopped. He was as far away as it was physically permissible to be from the building. He bent at the waist, resting his hands on his thighs, and slowed his breathing.

Then he straightened and looked up, instantly squinting. The spiraled razor wire atop the fence was coated with streamers of water droplets sparkling haphazardly in the muted daylight. He blinked a few times and then looked past the annoying glimmer, out toward the mountains.

He stood for a long time, just looking, taking in nothing and everything. He gulped slow, lung-searing breaths in through his nose. If the other prisoners were out milling about the yard right now he’d be putting up with the sounds of fights and arguments, petty bickering and tiresome posturing. There’d be the smell of cheap cigarettes, bad breath, foul body odors and the ever-present stench of fear.

He stretched again, and allowed himself a tenuous smile, grateful for a few moments of peace.

The wind was picking up, growling softly down through one of the passes, shredding the cloud layers as it swept through and allowing shafts of sunlight to poke through here and there.

Jim heard the familiar sound of the DOC bus’s clunky engine just seconds before he caught the glint of metal out near the highway as it turned onto the road leading to the prison. He watched the Chain as it bumped its way along the pock mocked surface, growing bigger, pulling closer until at last it’s imminent arrival attracted the attention of the other convicts and drew them out into the yard to gawk and speculate in spite of the rain.

He hated new arrivals, hated knowing what they were going through, hated what they would be going through, and hated knowing most of the stupid schmucks deserved every bit of it.

He counted heads through the dirty barred windows as the bus lumbered past on its way to the entrance.

“Six,” he muttered. “Stupid fucking bastards.” His block had two empty cells, one next to his. He hoped to hell they didn’t stick a crier in there.

The claxton blasted twice, catching Jim off guard, making him wince and clap his hands over his ears. He shook it off and sighed. He glanced over at the stooges, who’d moved closer to him, and waved them off with a grimace. He collected his wits and steeled himself once again before turning to head back inside. Curly handed him his clothes as he walked by, giving him a rare toothy grin, and he fell into step behind the three stooges.

Everyone else hung back, allowing the four men the head of the line. Jim shrugged into his shirt and struggled into his wet pants, as he waited with the others for everyone to line up for the count. It was good to be at the top of the pecking order Jim mused.

Little did he know the pecking order was about to change.

~*~*~

It was late evening, near lights out, when the new prisoners were brought in. Jim heard and felt the electric undercurrent zip along the block. His cell was on the third tier, at the far end opposite the guard station, with the one empty cell on one side and the cellblock wall on the other. He went to the bars and looked out and down to where the prisoners were waiting on the other side of the locked entrance. Moe was in the cell across from him, watching with as much indifference as Jim. Curly was two cells down from Moe, and Larry was in a cell on the second tier on the same side of the block as Jim, so Jim couldn’t see him.

He groaned when he saw who the intake officer was. There was no reason not to allow prisoners to dress after showering, or at least don boxers, in fact Jim suspected there were probably rules that demanded it, but Deak was a perverse prick who literally got a hard on by parading his new charges to their cells naked. And no one, convict or guard, had the guts, or more likely the interest, to go to the hassle of lodging a protest.

Lewd jeers, catcalls and shrill whistling started the moment the two men walked into the block, echoing loudly along the corridor.

The first man was nervous, shaking from head to toe. He was tall and gangly, with dingy yellow spiked hair and a grubbiness about him that made him look dirty even freshly showered. He held his pile of clothes and bedding in front of his crotch, which was a mistake. It was plain to see he was more concerned with covering his cock than keeping a steady hold on what he carried. If he dropped any of it, he’d have to bend over to pick it up. And then the heckling would be deafening.

The second man was a different story all together. He was shorter than the first man, with a sturdy, if not muscular build. Scrappy looking. He was young, maybe late teens or early twenties. He had ridiculously long hair, pulled into a braid that hung the entire length of his back. He had a strong, handsome, almost pretty face, marred somewhat by what looked like ritual scarring across his left cheekbone. He held his bundle securely near his chest, seemingly not concerned that his cock was on full display and enjoying the attention it was getting.

And he didn’t appear to be nervous at all. In fact, he exuded an indifferent calm, which unnerved Jim somewhat. The hairs on his forearms stood up and he shivered involuntarily.

That one was trouble on wheels with a capital T. Jim could feel it.

They started down the center walkway, heading toward an empty cell on the first level, and the derisive shouting went up a notch.

Having no stomach for the display, or Deak’s lascivious reaction to it, Jim turned and went to his bunk.

But the cacophony died down after only a few seconds, which was strange, so he went back to investigate.

Something odd was definitely going on. All prisoners, except Moe and Curly, as far as Jim could see, had retreated into their cells. The two stooges that he could see couldn’t see each other, but they were definitely communicating.

Jim leaned against the bars and craned his neck, looking down. He couldn’t see Larry, but he was sure the three men were relaying signals to each other and everyone else in the block.

“What’s going on?”

It was Deak’s voice, but Jim had thought it. He shot a look at Moe, but Moe was watching the goings on below. He tried to gain Curly’s attention by a curt hand wave, but was unsuccessful.

Deak called out again, angrily.

”What the hell is going on?”

Getting no answer, he shouted to the guard at the station instead.

“Open one oh four.”

There was a loud buzz and a click and the door to cell 104 slid open.

“Gibson, WA1969851.”

Gibson, obviously relieved, stumbled toward the cell. In his eagerness to get out of sight, he lost his footing and his clothes went flying.

“Pick ‘em up,” Deak barked. He grinned menacingly and glanced around quickly, looking as if he anticipated reaction, and instantly looking equally as pissed when none was forthcoming.

Gibson scrambled to do as he was told. He bent over, his ass flashing and his balls wobbling between his spread legs as he snatched everything up and ducked inside amid complete silence.

The other prisoner was still in the center walkway of the corridor. Deak stormed over to him, looking furious.

“Lock up one oh four!” he bellowed.

The cell door slid shut and locked with a click.

Deak pulled at his uniform, as if it needed to be smoothed, but Jim could see that he used the gesture to brush a hand deliberately over his crotch.

He pointed to the stairs at the end of the corridor and snapped at the remaining prisoner.

“Move!”

Jim looked again to Moe and Curly, but they both had their eyes trained on the young man below.

The prisoner was still calm, his pace steady. Jim saw him glance up at Curly, and then evidently at Larry, and finally at Moe. Jim would’ve sworn he saw the guy wink at Moe.

Jim was totally confounded, and watched mutely as the prisoner came up the two sets of steps unhurriedly and walked past his cell. He lowered his head for a moment and shook it, in hopes of clearing it. When he looked back up, the young man was right on the other side of the bars, facing him, staring at him with soul-searching eeriness.

“Move it sweet cheeks!’ Deak spat gruffly.

He prodded the man roughly in the flank with his nightstick and Jim inexplicably wanted to cave his skull in.

The prisoner didn’t react to either jab. He kept looking at Jim for the space of several more heartbeats. His eyes deepened to blue-black and a sudden, brief flicker of yellow-hot intensity sprang from their depths like the center of a gas flame coming to life.

Jim took a half step back and immediately stiffened, regretting the action instantly. He’d never backed away, never backed down from anyone since he’d been in this place and now this upstart pipsqueak had unsettled him with one maniacal gape. He stepped right back up to the bars and returned the look measure for measure.

Deak prodded the man again, harder.

“Now sweet cheeks!” he ordered.

The man’s face went blank except for one corner of his mouth, which twitched with what Jim could only describe as triumph. Then he turned and walked the few paces to the cell next to Jim’s.

“Open three oh seven!” Deak shouted loudly toward the guard station. The volume of his voice, normally necessary in order to be heard over the din that should have been present, was completely unnecessary and it echoed in the stillness.

A buzz, a click and metal gliding against metal reverberated through the cellblock.

“Sandburg. WA1969852.”

Deak placed a foot in front of Sandburg just as he took a step, tripping him. Sandburg went down hard on his knees, half in, half out of the cell. His shins hit the metal track the door slid along. Before he could move, Deak squatted behind him and ordered him to stay put. He used his nightstick to poke at Sandburg again, this time right between his ass cheeks.

“Oh yeah,” he said, lewdness dripping with each word, sounding as if he was taking up the thread of earlier remarks. “You’re not going to have any problem at all making friends, sweet cheeks.”

He stood up then and unselfconsciously adjusted himself. Jim wrinkled his nose as the stench of Deak’s arousal swirled through the still air. Deak used a foot to propel Sandburg the rest of the way into the cell.

Jim thought for a moment that Deak might follow Sandburg into the cell, but instead he looked down toward the guard station. Jim looked too, and saw Deak’s favorite toady trustee all trussed up in full body restraints fidgeting outside the gate.

Deak pawed his crotch and shouted hoarsely, a definite chuckle in his voice, for the cell to close and then walked away without looking back.

Jim watched it all, frowning with concerned bewilderment about Sandburg’s whacked out behavior, especially toward him, and wondered just why the hell he should be feeling concerned or bewildered about any of it.

He looked over to Moe as the cell door clicked shut.

Moe was sitting on the floor of his cell, cross-legged, his lips moving. Jim concentrated and could make out that damn name they had for him being chanted rhythmically along with a slew of other words he didn’t understand. Curly was doing the same, which meant most likely Larry was too.

He turned his attention to the cell next door, and damned if he couldn’t hear Sandburg chanting too. He pounded the adjoining wall.

“Sandburg!” he hissed through gritted teeth. “You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on? Huh?” He punctuated the questions with more wall pounding.

The reply was softly whispered, but Jim heard it clearly.

“Shut up, man. Hey, um, who are you anyway?”

Jim rolled his eyes and ground out an answer.

“Ellison. Jim Ellison. Now are you gonna tell me---,”

“That’s not what they call you, you know.”

“Huh? What? Who?”

“Shut up, Jim. I’ve had a long day.”

And then it was quiet.

Jim was confused and pissed and wanted answers. But no matter how long he pounded the wall or what he threatened to do if he didn’t get answers it remained quiet.

~*~*~

After a fitful night’s sleep laced with strange dreams, Jim was grateful when the 5:30am head count rolled around. Inmates wanting to exercise before breakfast were allowed to do so at the early hour. The rest remained where they were, to sleep or read or do whatever they did to occupy empty time, until the 7am breakfast call.

Jim took the requisite two steps out onto the catwalk when his cell door slid open. He checked to his left from the corner of his eye and was relieved to see Sandburg wasn’t standing there. And then kicked himself mentally for having allowed the little punk to unnerve him.

He worked off heaps of jittery energy in the gym, using nearly every piece of apparatus. He felt calmed and de-stressed by the time he went to the showers.

Gibson was there. Jim had noticed him in the gym during his workout. A few others had noticed him too. The guy didn’t flinch when he was approached. He didn’t fight them when two of them manhandled him to a corner of the shower, behind one of the low, tiled walls while a third stood point. He just nodded, accepting his fate, most likely knowing he’d need the protection these men would give him in return for being used.

Any port in a storm, Jim thought ruefully.

He knew the feeling

The night before a mission had always been the worst, in his covert ops days. Adrenaline teeming through his bloodstream, the lust for the upcoming task with its possibility of kill or be killed, which led to a lust as ancient as humankind, drove him and his teammates to give each other what solace and relief they could to take the edge off.

It didn’t matter whose body, which orifice. There was just the need, the lust.

And after the mission, if there had been killing and they came back alive, they could find their relief elsewhere, if that’s what they wanted…in the arms of hookers, or girlfriends, lovers or wives.

Killing always gave Jim an unbelievable cockstand and he usually couldn’t wait to return to base, couldn’t last until after the debriefing. There was always one of the guys who knew he was low man on the totem pole, or a rookie on the team, and Jim would take him, fast and rough.

The sounds coming from the corner of the shower brought him back to the present. He turned away, picking a partitioned shower on the other side of the room. He scrubbed himself furiously head to toe. He listened in to the hissed grunts and slobbery moans, not bothering to distinguish whose were whose. He put one forearm against the tiles and rested his forehead on it. He grabbed his cock with the other hand and jerked off violently.

He hadn’t found his port yet. Not in this storm.

~*~*~

Jim took his usual seat in the dining hall, alone at a table. No one ever joined him, not even the three stooges, even if it meant other tables were overcrowded, leading to disgruntled shoving and boisterous arguments.

Sandburg plopped down across from Jim dropping his tray on the table, obviously oblivious to the unwritten code, or not having any particular feeling of attachment to the parts of his anatomy Ellison would shortly be ripping from him.

He started babbling immediately. He had a goofy, boyish grin on his face.

“Can you believe this food, man? I’m not going make it through a life sentence, this stuff’ll kill me before I hit thirty,” he quipped, indicating the runny eggs and overcooked bacon on his plate with a dismissive wave of a hand.

Jim looked up from his task of methodically shoveling the same fare into his mouth and narrowed his eyes at Sandburg, but before he could growl around his mouthful to tell him to fuck off, Sandburg kept right on talking.

“Blair Sandburg by the way,” he said, thrusting a hand toward Jim.

Jim pointedly ignored it and went back to eating, instantly regretting that he didn’t make himself clear, because Blair took his silence as an invitation to stay put.

Sandburg shrugged and withdrew his hand.

“Last night was quite a trip, huh?” he went on. He gulped his juice, and nibbled gingerly at his bagel. “I so had to get into a different head space, you know?” He did a dramatic full body shake

Jim swallowed with an audible gulp and interrupted explosively. He jabbed his fork in the air, aiming it in Blair’s general direction but pulled up short making sure it didn’t look like a threat.

“Look, I don’t know what the hell went on last night,” he grated. “But I’m giving you fair warning kid. Stay the hell away from me. Got it?”

“Whoa, take it easy,” Blair countered feebly, wide-eyed. He held his hands up, surrender-style.

“I don’t know what candy ass crime you’ve been wrongly convicted of and unjustly incarcerated for, hippie-boy, but this is not playtime, and I’m not fucking Mr. Rogers,” Jim ground out tersely.

Blair promptly stood up. He gripped the sides of his tray so hard his knuckles turned white. With the same calm, intense stare he’d leveled at Jim the night before he said flatly, “I’m serving twenty-five to life for voluntary manslaughter because my visions told me the fucking bitch had to die.” He leaned over the table, right in close to Jim, so close Jim could see each individual tiny raised welt that made up the scar lines on his cheekbone, and rasped conspiratorially, “But it was murder.” He picked up the tray, turned abruptly and walked away.

Jim stared after him mutely, acutely aware that all eyes in the room were on him, them. But Blair had spoken so softly he was sure he was the only one who’d heard.

The stupid braid, which he’d been only marginally aware of the night before, now captured his full attention. It swung back and forth, mesmerizing him as it swooshed over the crisp new prison issued shirt, over and across the heavy-stitched denim seam covering the crack of Sandburg’s ass.

Blair sat down several tables away, joining the three stooges, who were giving Jim alarmed, overtly disapproving glares.

“Shit,” Jim muttered, and “Shit” again. He pushed his tray roughly aside, now uncomfortably aware of his dick straining against his fly, hard and hot. He shifted, trying to relieve the pressure and waited patiently for the guards to call for the line up so he could put some distance between him and Sandburg.

~*~*~

Jim spent the next two hours in the machine shop. He liked working with the metals, liked the steady, sure rhythm of the machinery. The tinted goggles helped dull his vision and the earplugs made it easier to tune out the other inmates’ incessant bitching. It’d taken him two years to earn the privilege of a job in the shop and he took a certain amount of comfort, if not pride, in the work he did. The regular, expected amount of bullying went on here, as it did almost nonstop day in and day out throughout the prison. But between Jim’s favorable standing with the stooges and his own infrequent need to fend off an upstart’s bid for dominant standing, he didn’t have to contend with much of it.

By halfway through his shift he’d managed to shove Sandburg, and his strange reaction to the fellow, to a back corner of his mind.

After the morning work shift ended he went to his court-ordered, mandatory group counseling session. His dad had spent a small fortune in lawyer fees in a bid to win Jim a temporary insanity plea, but the best he’d gotten his son was a reduced charge, which saved him from a death sentence, and landed him with three-day-a-week visits to the prison shrink. The system apparently thought he was crazy, just not crazy enough to get off scott-free, not when the victim of his craziness was a prominent Cascade politician.

It could’ve been far worse.

The system’s penchant for letting perpetrators off on technicalities is what had finally driven Jim to give up his badge. Little technicalities like Detective Ellison not possibly being able to see or hear the things he claimed under oath. His one slip up in bringing his own personal list of those perps to justice was when he’d remained at the scene of his last crime…the crime being the murder of Councilman Harris.

He’d arrived in the dead of the night to exact justice where the system had failed yet again, only to find another, more heinous crime under way. The councilman was taking his revenge out on his twelve-year-old daughter, whose testimony against him didn’t hold up when Jim’s claims were thrown out. Katie Harris died in Jim’s lap next to the body of her dead father. Jim knew how to cover his tracks. He’d done it successfully ten times, but he didn’t have time to both comfort Katie in her dying moments and affect a clean getaway.

His past claims of seeing things others didn’t, hearing what couldn’t possibly be heard by a normal human being, knowing things by taste, touch or smell, lent credence to the insanity defense. He was diagnosed with a mild psychosis, but the ruling was that he still knew exactly what he was doing.

And he had.

He was convicted on one count of second-degree murder, not the total of eleven pre-meditated murders he’d committed, ten of which no one would ever solve. And if spending the rest of his life in prison was the tradeoff for the thank you in the eyes of Katie Harris just before she closed them for the last time, then Jim thought he’d finally found justice.

The room was large, with barred windows and depressingly drab paint. A dozen folding chairs were arranged in a lopsided circle off to one side. Jim was already seated when Sandburg shuffled in, looking ruffled and sounding slightly out of breath.

The guard escorting him motioned him into the room with a curt wave, and Sandburg quickly surveyed the room.

Jim shifted in his seat so that Sandburg wouldn’t catch his eye, his body language clearly stating he wanted nothing to do with him.

The only empty seat, naturally, was next to Jim. So Blair planted his butt in it, then hopped to his feet, swung his braid over his shoulder, and sat back down.

“Sorry,” he apologized to the room, as he twiddled the braid. “It gets in the way sometimes.” He shrugged congenially and wriggled until he seemed comfortable.

Blair smelled strongly of onion, and Jim wrinkled his nose.

“What the hell?” Jim questioned irritably as he turned his attention to Blair.

“We have got to work on your vocabulary, man,” Blair responded, nonplussed. “You look like an intelligent guy, but your communication skills seriously suck.”

The rest of the occupants of the room tensed; a few sniggered. The psychiatrist, a mealy looking man with the requisite pasty complexion and half-moon glasses, took interest, as did the guard who was near the door, but he motioned impatiently for him to stay where he was.

“Hey, whoa, no problem here,” Jim placated, looking from the psychiatrist to the guard. “He just smells a bit ripe. Can’t the rest of you smell him?”

“Well ex cuuuuuse me,” Blair said with exaggerated emphasis on me, drawing laughs from around the room. “New guy here. Kitchen duty. It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.”

Seeing the self-deprecating goofy look on Sandburg’s face, Jim smiled in spite of himself and was relieved to see the guard step back.

He still wasn’t sure what was going on, but judging by Larry, Curly and Moe’s easy, albeit weird, acceptance of Sandburg both the previous night and then again at breakfast, he didn’t want to throw things out of whack.

The session followed the same pattern it always did, with the shrink plodding through his rounds of ‘Is there anything anyone would like to share with the group?’ and ‘Why do you think you’re here?’ type questions. And the group’s usual non-committal bullshit answers.

When he got to Blair, Jim was as surprised as the rest of the group at his response.

Blair sat up straight and stared off into space as he answered. He voice was flat, dull, but it held a definite bite.

“I’m here because a court appointed psycho babbleist decided that just because he doesn’t understand my visions and can’t comprehend their significance, that that makes me slightly, but not entirely, crazy. I killed a woman who deserved to die. Her name was Alex Barnes. She did horrible things to innocent people. People I cared about.”

Blair’s voice didn’t falter. His expression didn’t change. A single tear rolled down his cheek and slid off the tip of his chin. He made no attempt to wipe the tear track from his face. He stopped talking and didn’t say another word the rest of the session.

Something deep inside Jim responded to Blair’s dignified self-possessed demeanor with an intensity that disquieted him.

As they were leaving, he shouldered Blair companionably, not sure why he should give a damn. His voice was throaty as he said, “Hey, Chief, sorry for all the shit I’ve been giving you.”

Blair pushed back against him, yo-yoing back to the goofy look he’d sported earlier, and then they quickly sidestepped away as the guard eyed them warily.

“Nah,” Blair replied easily. “I bet this place has gotta get to you sometimes. Like I said, last night was like, just out there, you know?” You wanna talk tonight, no problem, ‘k?”

The way he said it, as if they were buddies planning to shoot the breeze after a day at work, instead of two inmates in a maximum-security prison, hit Jim square in the heart.

“’K,” he answered less than eloquently, feeling tongue-tied. But before he could come up with something better, Blair was heading off, probably back to the kitchens, and Jim returned to the machine shop, for once since the first day he’d stepped inside this place, looking forward to getting back to his cell.

~*~*~  
Jim saw Blair again at lunch, only this time Blair was on the other side of the counter, visible only when the kitchen doors swung open and pans of food were brought out. He was in the back part of the kitchen, up to his elbows in soapsuds.

He was surprised not to see Blair when it was time to go outside, late in the afternoon. He’d struck Jim as the kind of guy who’d want out no matter what the weather, for the same reasons Jim did. But then, he was new, and not settled into the routine yet, maybe wouldn’t feel at ease among the main line just yet. Or maybe he’d spent more time talking than scrubbing pots and pans and was still stuck in the kitchen.

Jim started prowling around the yard, ramrod straight, taking in everything going on…who was hanging with whom, who was high, who was hiding out, who was making moves.

Another convict fell into step alongside him, which was unusual.

“Looks like the fish’s muscled in on your thing,” he said boldly.

Jim turned on him at once, and restrained himself from roughing him up when he saw who it was. It was only ding-y Joey Beecham. Jim pulled him into a loose headlock, shook him a little and then let him go. “Get outta here, tough guy,” he advised, giving Joey a prod. Joey snorted and took off.

Joey may have said it, but he wouldn’t have come up with it on his own. Which meant there was talk. Loose talk traveling along the grapevine on the inside was swift and he wondered just exactly what was being said and how much of it was just noise.

Jim spent some time listening in on the different conversations around the yard. Nothing jumped out at him, no mention of his name or Sandburg’s, so he decided to take a few laps and then mountain-gaze for a bit.

Yard-in soon sounded, and Jim made his way toward the gate. He was surprised to see Sandburg standing with Larry, Curly and Moe. Maybe he’d been out here all along, keeping a low profile, or maybe he’d come after finishing up late in the kitchen. Either way, Jim found out how much and how little truth there was to Joey’s statement when he walked past Blair.

Curly shook his head and jutted his chin out. He made a small shooing motion with his hands. Blair raised his eyebrows and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, not meeting Jim’s eyes as Jim grudgingly moved behind him. This seemed to satisfy Curly, and let everyone in the yard know that while Jim was still a top dog, Blair was not only in the stooges’ good graces, but now under Jim’s protection too.

“Nice,” Jim drawled sarcastically.

Well, if he had to watch someone’s back, Sandburg’s was nicer on the eyes than most. On impulse, Jim grabbed Blair’s braid and gave it a gentle tug.

“Do you have any idea how stupid it is to wear your hair this long in here?” he goaded, giving the braid a harder tug to emphasize his point. “I could use it to yank you pretty much anywhere I wanted.” Jim’s voice was low, throaty, with a suggestive edge to it.

Blair spun around, entrapping himself in his hair as it wrapped around his neck, bringing him nose to chin with Jim.

“Yeah?” he challenged huskily as his eyes darted upward in a dare, an invitation.

Flustered, Jim dropped his hold on the hank of hair, just as a guard shouted, “Hey! You two! Break it up!”

Blair turned back around and untwined his braid, twirling it up over his head and then sending it arcing outward to ease into a pendulous swing as he started walking.

If he’d still known how to blush, Jim’d being doing it now. Instead he set to thinking how he was going to find a way to take Blair up on the offer he’d just made as he let his gaze drop past the dangling hair in front of him and settle on Blair’s ass.

~*~*~

Jim sat on the floor of his cell that night, wedged into the corner right up next to the bars with his back up against the wall that abutted Blair’s cell. He imagined Blair was seated in much the same way, judging by the body heat he could feel oozing out around the bars and into his cell. They could converse easily this way, making it difficult to be overheard. Blair did most of the actual talking, in a soft voice. Jim mostly just asked questions, and prodded for whatever information Blair was willing to give up.

It turned out Blair was only a little older than he seemed the night before under first impression scrutiny, but Jim had already guessed that once he’d had a chance to see him closer up. And at twenty-five he’d already traveled considerably, had his BA and a Master’s and had been working toward a PhD when he’d murdered Alex Barnes.

He didn’t offer details about that, and Jim didn’t press for any, though he could hear the sharp edge in Blair’s voice when he mentioned her name. Hearing that tone, and picturing the piercing stare Blair had directed at him twice during the past twenty-four hours, he could understand how someone might peg him as unhinged.

The reason for the previous night’s weirdness came out with snorted laughter and a fondness in Blair’s voice that Jim enjoyed.

“I don’t know why you call him Moe, but okay, whatever. He doesn’t seem to mind, so why should I, right? Anyway, I lived with Moe and his family a few summers ago, before he got sent up, when I was doing some research. Out on the Yakima Reservation. I’m an anthropologist, did I mention that?”

“Only about a dozen times,” Jim assured him. “Go on.”

“Right. Well, Moe’s grandmother, this really neat lady, she said I’d been chosen for something special.” Blair paused suddenly. He’d sounded as if he’d been building up steam, but then skidded to a halt and just said, “She helped me on my vision quests.”

Jim wondered what’d been skipped over in that brief pause, the cop in him smelling withheld information, and it irritated him. He grabbed hold of what he could, still in cop mindset.

”You mean she supplied you with illegal hallucinogenic substances,” he cut in gruffly. “When you were what? Fifteen?”

“I was over twenty-one,” Blair answered with an overly dramatic, indignant huff.

Jim really wished he could see his face, sure it would reflect a youthful, wounded innocence, and that picture pushed his irritability aside.

“What about the markings?” Jim probed in a lighthearted tone as long as they were on the subject of being old enough to consent to things. “They look primitive. Tribal. Or something.” He figured Sandburg was maybe the kind of guy who’d go for something elemental, what with the braid he sported. “Granny do those too?”

“They were her idea,” Blair answered tersely with a bitter edge. “She told them to pin me down and hold me and then she drew the pattern with the charred tip of stick she pulled from the fire. It burned a little.” Blair sounded a bit dazed, as if he were remembering it for the first time and that fact hadn’t occurred to him before. “I could feel it searing my skin. Smell it. They held me tighter so she could finish it. And then she watched as they made the cuts.”

Blair stopped abruptly and Jim waited for more, but Blair didn’t elaborate further.

Jim could hear him shudder, could almost picture him shrugging off the memory. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of neat little old lady would forcibly disfigure someone. Someone like Blair. Or why. And how Blair could still speak of her with fondness in his voice. But before he could decide how, or if, to say anything about it, Blair spoke again.

“Anyway when I,” Blair started shakily. He hesitated and Jim could hear him gulp. “When I was convicted and knew I was being sent here, she wrote to Moe and let him know. I’m sure it was just pure dumb luck that I ended up assigned to this cell, my karma isn’t all that good lately.” He chuckled nervously. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to hold up like I did last night if I’d ended up in another cellblock.”

Jim went along with the change of subject. “What were they, you, chanting?” he asked.

Blair perked up a little and answered with some enthusiasm, “It was a cleansing ritual, of sorts. We can’t really do it properly here; it was the best we could manage.”

“What do I have to do with your cleansing?” Jim peeved. “They have a name they call me. It sounds like---. Well, never mind what it sounds like. To me,” he added as clarification. “They’ve never told me what it means. Do you know?”

“Sure,” Blair answered, his voice crackling with surprise; the tenseness of few moments earlier gone. “But I can’t really pronounce it right either. I can’t get the correct inflections, and the phonetics kinda throw me, you need to sorta get guttural and your tongue has to kinda do this tap dance on the roof of your mouth---,”

“Geez, Chief, I’ve only got another forty or fifty years to serve,” Jim groused with a laugh.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Blair replied, laughing too. “It means sentinel. It’s what you are.”

“Sentinel,” Jim murmured softly to himself a few times, letting the word roll around inside his head for a bit, missing part of what Blair was saying.

“---can help you. And I can, I will, be your partner.” Blair was finishing up. “If you’ll have me.”

“Have you?” Jim sounded perplexed. He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand, wishing he hadn’t let his mind drift.

“Yeah, you know, have me,” Blair prompted helpfully, enunciating each word clearly. “You seemed interested earlier.”

Jim exhaled slowly, making a soft whooshing sound meant for Blair to hear.

“Hey, man, sorry. I thought, I mean you---,” Blair sounded panicky.

“You thought right,” Jim interrupted bluntly. Then he softened his tone, but still managed to make his next words an order. “Get up for the early count and come to the gym with me. And go to bed. We both need to get some sleep.”

It was very still for a few moments and then Blair answered him, sounding breathless with a hint of dawning realization lacing his response.

“Oh! Oh, right. G’night Jim.”

~*~*~

Their time in the gym was spent with Jim showing Blair the different pieces of equipment and how to use them, with a brief workout on each. Long before he’d normally quit, Jim motioned Blair to the shower room, calling out to the guard on duty for both of them.

“Hittin’ the shower boss!”

The guard nodded acknowledgement.

The shower room was basically one large communal shower, but partitioned off with three shoulder-height tiled walls every eight feet, and one larger area. Jim hustled Blair to one of the stalls toward the back.

“We don’t have anyone to stand point, we’ll have to be careful,” Jim said as they undressed.

Blair raised his eyebrows quizzically. “You’re kidding, right?” he said, grinning. At Jim’s frown, he added. “You’re a sentinel, enhanced senses, you must’ve noticed them before now, I explained last night, this ringing any bells?”

Jim shook his head, feeling embarrassed. “I wasn’t listening to that part.”

Blair gave him an exasperated look and shook his head.

“Right. Never mind. We can go over it again later. Look at me and listen to my heart.” He took one of Jim’s hands and placed it on his chest. “Feel it?”

Jim snatched his hand away, but Blair just snatched it right back and held his own hand over Jim’s against his chest, and gave him a patiently perturbed look.

“Feel it?” He repeated, and it was as much a command as a question.

At Jim’s mute nod he said, “Now listen for it.”

Jim nodded again. “I can hear it.” He sounded amazed.

“And out in the gym? Can you hear what’s going on out there?”

Jim’s brows wrinkled and he tilted his head. He could. Of course he could.

“We haven’t got a lot of time. Ten minutes maybe, tops.”

Without waiting for Blair to say anything, Jim took his face in his hands and kissed him, tasting him…prison issued toothpaste not quite covering morning mouth and hints of yesterday’s meals. Blair kissed back and didn’t resist as Jim broke free and pushed him up against the wall, under the nozzle.

Jim traced Blair’s face with his fingertips, a quick reconnoiter. Each tiny scar was touched and the line it made across Blair’s cheekbone memorized. He wanted to know more about the why, but filed it away. They’d have time, endless time to talk. Now was not the time.

He roamed across Blair’s nose, down and over the early morning fuzz on his cheeks and chin, and across his puckered lips, studying every contour and declivity by sight as well as touch. He moved on to Blair’s chest, his palm flat against the hair, making slow circular motions, rubbing each nipple. He raised a questioning brow as he felt the empty pierced hole in one of them.

“Long story,” Blair strangled out. “They made me take the ring out when I got here.”

One corner of Jim’s mouth twitched upward. More for another time.

He got as far as Blair’s groin, having passed swiftly over navel and abdomen. He took Blair’s cock in his hand. He gave it a good look, and smiled. The flesh was warm and crinkly, but it smoothed and stretched under his prompting. He could hear the blood vessels, feel them pulsing. He reached between Blair’s legs and cupped his balls, giving them a firm squeeze.

Blair was breathing hard, short gulped snatches at the air. He licked his lips intermittently and alternately scrunched his eyes shut and popped them open.

Jim knelt down and sucked Blair’s cock into his mouth with a slow, sloppy slurp, smiling around its hardness at the startled yelp Blair made. He drew it in, letting his tongue play along it, feeling its warmth give way to heat, hearing blood and semen swoosh and rush blindly to its tip, tasting pre-cum as it pooled at the slit and then spurted against the back of his throat, smelling Blair’s musk explode.

Before Blair could come, Jim stopped sucking and pulled away.

Blair looked down at him, frustration and disapproval stamped across his features. But all he managed to say was, “Unnnnngh,” as he slumped and let his head fall back against the wall, and hit it with balled up fists.

Jim smiled approvingly. He stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and then spun Blair around. He took Blair’s arms and maneuvered them upward, running his hands up their length until he got to his hands. And then he fanned them open and placed them palm-flat against the tiles. He pressed his body full-length against Blair’s, and circled Blair’s wrists, cuffing them with his fingers, pinning Blair to the wall by force of will as he let go.

“I will make this good for you,” Jim whispered in his ear.

Blair just nodded and closed his eyes.

Jim nuzzled his nose just under Blair’s right ear and inhaled deeply. He still smelled of onions now mingled with cooking grease, dish soap and other kitchen odors from the day before. But now there was sweat and arousal and spunk as well, and as Jim sniffed closer, under it all was nothing but Blair’s unique scent. It was like fresh baked cookies, and warm sunshine, spicy gumdrops and wood smoke. He discarded all the other scents and breathed in only Blair as he sniffed his way down Blair’s back, nosing the braid out of the way until he reached Blair’s ass.

And then he grabbed the braid and tugged, hard, forcing Blair’s head back. He leaned in and nipped Blair’s exposed throat.

“Are you my punk?” he rasped. His voice was low, husky, edged with cruelty. ” That’s how it’s gotta be, you know,” uttered as a statement, not a question, not a request, not looking for permission.

Not letting go of the braid, Jim ran his other hand roughly down Blair’s back. He reached around to Blair’s cock and fondled it, jerking it twice. And then dragged his hand up and across Blair’s hip, down and over his ass. He squeezed it hard, digging his fingernails into the flesh and dipped his fingers into the cleft, pulling them slowly down and over his hole, pressing against it demandingly, and then down to his balls, prodding them with the tips of two fingers.

Blair hadn’t said anything, but he was thinking. Jim could feel the tense concentration paid to Jim’s words quiver throughout his body.

Finally, after forever, after no more than a heartbeat, Blair nodded.

Jim reached over Blair’s head and turned the water on. The cool spray spilled over them both and Jim quickly adjusted the taps, fiddling with them until the water changed to easy on the skin hot, and puffs of steam started to rise.

Where Blair’s braid ended, there was a hank of hair about twelve inches long hanging loose beyond the band holding it together. Jim took hold of the wet tail and twined it in and around his fist. He let it slip out of his grasp, and then caught it up again quickly, repeating the process several times. Then he drew it through his grip one last time, and worked it into the crack of Blair’s ass. He wedged it there firmly, slapping Blair’s ass once when he wiggled from the tickle.

“Clench your cheeks,” Jim directed sternly. “Hold it there or I’ll have to hurt you.”

Blair complied and Jim could feel him tremble all over. He didn’t think it was from fear. He grabbed a bar of soap, and lathered it between his hands. He looked Blair over, head to toe, seeing every inch of every part of him, hearing the steady heartbeat and hitched breathing, smelling the excited arousal. He soaped Blair all over, and worked his cock again. He pushed a hand sideways between Blair’s ass cheeks, sliding the soapiness up and down. He chuckled throatily as Blair’s cheeks tightened, in order not to lose hold of the braid. He patted his ass as a sign of approval and Blair let out a satisfied moan.

Jim soaped his own cock and then listened all ‘round for noise from the gym and the shower room, confirming they were still completely alone.

He kicked Blair’s legs apart a little, smiling crookedly at the sight of Blair clenching his cheeks for all he was worth. He pushed on Blair’s neck, angling his head down; making him thrust his hips back a bit. He slid his cock between Blair’s cheeks. The silky, slippery hair adhered itself to Jim’s cock and stayed with him as he pushed inside Blair.

“Oh, oh, gods,” Blair whispered. They were the first words he’d said in quite a while. “Man, oh wow, that feels, wow.”

And then he made nothing but incoherent garbling noises as he rocked in time with Jim’s thrusts. His head bobbed up and down slightly too, in sync with the braid’s movements inside his ass.

Blair came first; he’d been near from almost the first second Jim touched him. He convulsed as his orgasm rippled through him, tightening his ass muscles around Jim’s cock, clamping and releasing with shuddery jolts.

Jim’s hands dug into Blair’s hips deliberately enough to leave marks, hard enough to bruise. He waited, breathing hard, drawing out his pleasure…the sight, smell, sound, touch and taste of Blair…all rushing together to hurl him over the edge.

He sagged against Blair’s back as his cock and Blair’s hair slid free. “Christ,” he wheezed, and then laughed.

Less than five minutes had elapsed, but it felt like an eternity to them both.

Jim pulled Blair upright and pulled him against his chest in a tight bear hug. Blair clung to Jim’s arms and went limp. Jim tugged at Blair’s left ear with his teeth, noticing the two holes there for the first time, and tenderly nibbled the earlobe.

Dozens of explanations flitted through his brain as to why he’d never done this with anyone in here before now, had always felt the need not to give in to this type of urge, had made do with taking care of his own needs. The rationale his mind came up with pushed it’s way forward, but he wasn’t ready to yield to that possibility.

One guy, years earlier, had tried to turn him out. The idiot either didn’t know the scut or didn’t care. The ensuing fight landed Jim in the hole for two weeks. The idiot spent a month in the infirmary. What had just happened between him and Blair felt almost the same. He’d threatened to hurt Blair. But on the other hand, Blair had extended an offer, and didn’t fight or…

Blair cut into his thoughts, as if reading them.

“I wouldn’t’ve let you force me,” he said with such conviction that Jim couldn’t help but wonder how he thought he could’ve stopped him. “It was my choice. And I understand how it’s gotta be.”

“This is crazy,” Jim huffed, still a little out of breath. The three words were the best he could come up with; the most he was willing to concede to himself or Sandburg.

Blair turned his head so he could look up at Jim, smiling wickedly from lips to eyeballs, and Jim wondered who he thought he was fooling because it sure as hell wasn’t Blair.

“Crazy is my middle name, didn’t you know that?” Blair whispered, and then chortled with an evil cackle. “Just don’t push it.”

By the time the other inmates filed into the shower room a few minutes later Blair and Jim were both half-dressed and engaged in gruff inane banter. Jim casually stepped between Blair and the other men, positioning himself as a rigid barrier, his body stating clearly what he wouldn’t say aloud, not to any of them.

They finished dressing while the others started in on lewd, suggestive comments under their breaths, which were silenced by one ice-blue glare from Jim.

Then they put their game faces on and went out.  
Jim ate alone again at breakfast, though Moe cuffed him convivially upside his head as he walked past to join his cohorts, who made no attempt to alter the bemused looks on their faces. He set his jaw and went stone-faced, perturbed at how fast news on the prison grapevine traveled.

He lumbered through his morning in the metal shop, feeling edgy and brittle. He chewed out a guy nearby for being careless with a drill press, and came close to sticking his head in a vise. A shoving match ensued and would’ve ended badly if Larry hadn’t pulled Jim off the guy before the supervisor or guards took notice and stepped in.

By the time the shift ended he left feeling tightly wound.

Blair showed up at the group session, late again. He gave the room a quick once-over and started toward the only empty chair. Which was not next to Jim this time.

Jim elbowed the guy sitting next to him on his right, a grade-A schmuck in his estimation, and nearly upended him onto the floor. The fact that the schmuck didn’t land on his ass was not due to Jim holding back in any way, but because he was apparently just too stupid to know the floor was where he’d be safer. He steadied his feet on the floor at the last possible second, and re-seated himself. And then he turned on Jim.

“What the fuck, Ellison,” he snarled, coming halfway off his chair. He glanced over at Sandburg and snorted. “Why don’t you just have your girlfriend sit on your lap for fuck’s sake?’

Blair hadn’t taken his seat yet, and at this remark he stiffened. His eyebrows shot up, making him appear curious rather than offended. He crossed his arms and waited, along with everyone else, to see what would happen.

At the same time the guard by the door came into the room, ready to intervene, but the doctor waved him back. He kept one hand poised on his radio; the other held his nightstick at the ready. He gave the doctor a dubious look but didn’t come any further.

Jim knew how far he could push; how much latitude the doc would allow. How much surly attitude and physicality he’d let the group get away with in the name of therapeutic venting.

Jim stood up. The action was slow and deliberate and he never took his eyes off the schmuck. He looked down on him, glowering, and then tilted his head ever so slightly.

The guy cowered visibly and shrunk low in his seat, but didn’t make a move to give it up.

Jim walked across the room and took hold of Blair’s braid. Blair lowered his eyes, shook his head, and sighed audibly.

Jim grasped the end of the braid in his fist and then rotated his arm once, twice, wrapping the braid around his forearm.

“You’re kidding, right?” Blair whispered tightly without moving his lips. “Don’t push it, remember?”

Jim ignored him, and used the braid to tow Blair the short distance back across the room.

“Move,” he said to the schmuck. “Please.” He added with extreme insincerity and a look that said ‘maybe not here, maybe not now’.

The schmuck slid off the chair grudgingly and plodded across the room to take the chair Sandburg hadn’t.

Jim waited until Blair sat down, which was awkward what with the braid still entwined around his arm. Then he let the hair slip free with a gentle shake.

The guard backed off, but not before giving Jim a warning glance and pointing his nightstick in his direction. With a nod to the doctor indicating he was within easy reach he went out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.

“Do you want to talk about what just happened?” the doctor chimed in helpfully with a hopeful gleam in his eye.

“No!” Jim and Blair snapped in unison.

Blair squirmed in his seat, and Jim didn’t think it was from embarrassment.

The tiniest of smiles cracked Jim’s stony veneer. He crossed his arms, got comfy in his own seat and stared up at the ceiling.

It was a pretty dull, uneventful, and unenlightening session all round after that, even with the schmuck pouring his heart out about his inferiority complex.

When it came time to leave, Blair sprung from his seat so fast and furiously Jim almost got knocked flat by the force of his ire. He gave Jim a withering look that stated quite clearly, he’d gnaw Jim’s hand off if it made a move for his braid. Then he stormed to the door and jiggled impatiently while the guard checked him off the role and when he was sent on his way he hurried off, not once looking back.

~*~*~

After pushing food around his plate at lunch instead of eating it, and feeling surly at not catching a glimpse of Sandburg in the lunchroom, Jim barely made it through the afternoon shift in the metal shop, with his mind in a red-hazed jumble. He ruined the fixture he’d been working on for two days and came close to stuffing the same guy that had annoyed him that morning into one of the scrap bins along with the lump of twisted metal. He was miffed almost beyond endurance when Blair didn’t return to his cell mid-afternoon. He was thoroughly agitated when the callout for the count took twice as long as it should have because the guard in charge took his sweet ass time about it. He got out to the big yard later than usual and made a quick tour, hunting for Blair. Not finding him, he waited near the gate, making his impatience known by snarling and growling at anyone who came out of the building that wasn’t Blair.

When Blair finally did emerge, Jim set himself in his path.

The mob in the yard buzzed with unsuppressed interest in what was going on.

Larry, Curly and Moe closed ranks around Blair, but Jim wasn’t deterred.

Jim pointed a finger at Blair. “You and me need to talk,” he barked.

“You bet your ass we do,” Blair agreed, nodding, as he advanced.

Moe shook his head, grabbed Blair’s elbow, and hustled him past Jim, leaving Curly and Larry to disperse the gathering mob before it drew unwanted attention. Whatever mojo they possessed seemed to work, because everyone quickly went about their own business.

Jim followed Moe and Blair at a quickstep and once they were well away from the crowd, Moe let Blair loose. Whereupon Blair turned on Jim, slamming his body against his and got right up into his face. He screwed his eyes into the crackpot look Jim’d already become acquainted with, and set his jaw, fuming with unbridled hostility.

“That look’s getting old, Sandburg,” Jim said frigidly as he shoved Blair off him. He stood rigidly, his own jaw set tighter than Blair’s, the muscles pulsing, going for the intimidating look that had always made perps sweat like mad.

Blair stepped right back into Jim’s personal space, unfazed, though the demented look slipped off his face.

“Just because I was the one who took it up the ass,” he hissed, “this time”, he emphasized, driving home his meaning with a piercing, jagged tilt to his voice that left Jim’s ears ringing, “doesn’t make me your boy, got it?”

Jim felt taken aback, sucker-punched. This wasn’t what he’d expected, this reverse assertiveness. He was supposed to be the one laying down the law. The implication, no…threat, promise? God, which did he hope it was?…that Blair would fuck him, was out of left field.

He became aware that the stooges were watching him, silently assessing the situation, but weren’t making any moves to intervene.

Blair was already prattling on in a steely, don’t mess with me tone; poking Jim sharply in the chest to drive home his words.

“What you, we, need to do for show, okay, yeah, I get that, I get how it needs to look, for both our sakes’. But that whole bullshit macho ownership bull at therapy today was you all the way. You do not want the kind of hurt I can bring down on you, believe me.”

Blair gave Curly, Larry and Moe each a penetrating look that must’ve conveyed volumes to them, to judge by the looks on their faces.

Jim felt as much as saw the flashed looks of solidarity that passed among the three stooges, whose focus was completely on Blair. He stood, slack-jawed, not knowing how to respond to a threat he wasn’t really convinced Sandburg could make good.

And then Blair’s voice changed. “You’re not alone anymore, Jim,” he said as he laid a hand on Jim’s chest. He sounded momentarily as desperate as Jim’d felt for so long, and compassionate, but without a hint of pity.

Jim’s chest felt riddled with pockmarks of heat where Blair’s fingertip had darted across it. His palm was a blistering touch, leeching through fabric onto his goose-fleshed skin. Jim felt detached; mesmerized.

Blair’s voice grew stronger then, and he re-iterated his earlier demand testily, breaking the spell.

“But I’m not, no way, no how, your boy. Got it?”

He seemed to expect an answer, and waited for it pulsating with impatience.

Things snapped into place in Jim’s brain with a twang that transferred to his eyes and face and telegraphed to Blair with alacrity a split second before he grabbed a fistful of Blair’s shirt and backhanded him across the face. Then he twisted one of Blair’s arms up behind his back, spun him around, and leaned full body into him and his breath puffed onto Blair’s neck in soft, raspy words.

“How’s that for show?” he purred menacingly, jutting his chin toward the expanse of the yard where onlookers were starting to take interest again.

He exerted a bit of pressure on Blair’s twisted arm, forcing him to bend slightly forward. His half hard cock pressed against the tautly stretched seam of Blair’s pants and he jammed his body hard against Blair’s and gyrated his hips.

“I don’t need a boy,” he concurred hoarsely. “And I don’t respond well to threats.” He ground his cock into Blair.

He let Blair go, giving him just enough of a shove to send him headlong into Moe’s midsection.

Blair unfolded himself slowly. He probed the inside of his cheek with his tongue for any damage from the slap, rubbing his opened mouth with the back of his wrist. His eyes were fixed on Jim and held an amused glint.

Moe helped Blair straighten up and instead of hanging onto him, he propelled him back toward Jim unsympathetically with a two handed push.

Blair went with the momentum and used it to hurl himself at Jim, crashing into him full-force. He wrapped his arms around Jim’s waist and threw them both to the ground in a clumsy tackle. Coming out on top, straddling Jim, he dug his knees into Jim’s ribcage and jabbed him in the belly with a swift left, followed by a quick right upper cut to the underside of Jim’s chin.

Stars danced across his line of vision as Jim’s head smacked the blacktop. He blinked and shook his head. He’d pegged Sandburg as scrappy looking on first sight, now he grudgingly added tenacious. The stooges’ earlier byplay hadn’t given him any warning for Moe’s actions but he still wasn’t at all pleased with himself for being taken off guard by the surprise attack the little twerp sprung.

He wasn’t quick enough to fend off the first two blows Sandburg landed, but he recovered his wits fast enough, and his years of covert ops training kicked in instinctively.

It took about two seconds for Jim to reverse their positions. And once he was on top, he grabbed Blair’s collar, lifting his head and shoulders off the pavement. He slapped Blair’s face open-handed, three or four times hard, alternating from one of Blair’s cheeks to the other so that his head swung back and forth with the blows.

Blair had hold of Jim’s upper arms, and dug his fingers into Jim as hard as he could. He thrashed about, trying to get some purchase to fight back or wrench free, but Jim had more strength and more determination driven by many more years of experience at disabling an opponent.

Jim got to his feet, dragging Blair up with him, in a fluid, almost graceful movement. He kept his hold on Blair this time with one handful of crumpled shirt tucked up close under Blair’s chin. It was almost a chokehold, but not quite.

Blair grabbed Jim’s wrist with both hands, and fought to free himself, but Jim just held him at arm’s length and shook him warningly.

Jim rubbed his ribs with his free hand, and then gingerly touched his chin. He could feel the tissue under the skin swelling; he was going to have a nice bruise. He was barely winded but felt breathless.

The short-lived fight had attracted a knot of rowdy onlookers. Jim’d been only marginally aware of them and their hooting and hollering, having concentrated his attention mainly on Sandburg, leaving crowd control to the stooges. That had obviously been a mistake; another in the line of blunders he’d committed within the last twenty-four hours.

Blair was fuming, sputtering insults and doing his best to tear Jim’s hand off his throat. He lashed out with one leg, in an effort to swipe Jim’s legs, but he didn’t have the reach.

Jim gave Blair another rattling shake, which nearly made Blair lose his precarious footing. Then he gave each of the stooges a measured, thoroughly disparaging look, each of which was met in turn by a hapless shrug or subdued headshake.

“Right,” Jim muttered through gritted teeth. “Just great,” he added as several guards waded into the melee, with whistles shrilling and arms waving, driving the small mob off.

Jim let Blair go at that point and dropped his hands, flinging them outward in a show of giving up for the guards’ benefit.

He assumed Blair would do the same. As Blair plowed into him from behind, flailing away at any part of him he could get at, Jim just hung his head and mentally added one more boner to the tally of stupid things for the day.

Jim let the guards peel Sandburg off him and stood impassively as he was cuffed.

Blair wasn’t as cooperative as Jim and ended up a bit worse for the wear, but just as securely restrained. Except for his mouth, which spewed unbridled vitriol at Jim, in both English and what sounded like Moe’s native tongue, as they were both led away.

Moe, Larry and Curly watched them go. All three had resigned amused looks on their faces, which seemed to piss Blair off more than it did Jim, making Jim crack a lopsided smile. It faded quickly though, as he heard Moe say with a snort, “Sentinels. Man, can they be a pain.”

~*~*~

By the time Jim and Blair were processed into solitary for their infractions, Blair had settled down considerably.

Each man sported only minor injuries. The most prominent for Blair was a fat lip; for Jim it was a good-sized bruise blossoming under his chin and creeping up onto his face.

Jim observed Blair out of the corner of one eye as they entered the segregation block.

Blair looked pale, and a little scared, as the door to his cell was opened and he got a look at what his world would be for the next two weeks.

The cells in the segregation block were considerably smaller than a regular cell. Each had a cot, a sink, and a toilet and that was about it. The cells had heavy metal doors instead of one wall of bars, making them all the more confining. The only way to see out was by way of a rectangular slit at roughly eye level that could be shut from the outside.

Jim didn’t mind the isolation. He was already switching his mindset to a routine that would see him through the next couple of weeks. Tricks he’d learned in covert ops…a regimented cycle of exercise, mental calisthenics, nourishment, and sleep. Take one day at a time. He knew how to cope with it. He suspected Sandburg wouldn’t.

He went to the door and looked out through the slit. He could see the top of Sandburg’s head as he paced back and forth in the cell across the way.

“Hey Sandburg, so much for the hurt you think can bring down on me,” he taunted cruelly with a sneer. Just saying the words gave him gut-level feeling of self-satisfaction.

In response Blair stopped pacing and came to his door. Jim expected the wacko stare to be leveled at him; was ready for it. But it didn’t come. There was something else in Blair’s eyes, something that bore into him and drilled right down to that gut-level smugness.

“Fuck off Sandburg,” Jim jeered caustically.

Blair said something that Jim couldn’t make out. It sounded like soft humming, then grew to an annoying buzz. And then a crackling noise like cellophane being crunched filled his head just before a pyrotechnic display of flickering blue sparks went off in dizzying speed swamping his field of vision, then everything went black.

~*~*~

Jim came to with his head feeling like a box of rocks. He was lying face down on his cot, naked. His feet were crossed at the ankles and his wrists were crossed too, resting at the small of his back. It felt as if he was gagged, but he quickly dismissed that notion as he worked his jaw and ran his tongue over his lips. And at that moment he realized he wasn’t bound, though it had seemed so.

He heard Sandburg’s voice then, soft and matter of fact, as if he were right next to him, whispering in his ear.

“If you’re hungry you’d better get up. The guard will back for the tray in a few minutes.”

Jim sprung off the bed and hit the floor in a defensive crouch. He glanced wildly around, momentarily very disoriented. He spotted his clothes on the floor at the foot of the bed, folded in a neat pile. Just inside the door a food tray sat on the floor.

He snatched his pants from the clothes pile and got to his feet. He pulled them on, not bothering with boxers, fumbling with the zipper as he went to the door. He looked out and across to Sandburg’s cell, and even though there was no sign of him he could still hear his voice.

“It’s probably all cold by now.”

“Sandburg!” He snapped. “What the hell is going on?”

Sandburg didn’t come to his door. Jim couldn’t detect any movement from within the cell. But he could hear him plain as day when he spoke.

“Eat. Then we’ll talk.”

Jim slammed his fist against the door, feeling disjointed and frustrated. Not knowing what else to do, he leaned down, picked up the tray and carried it back to the bed.

He wondered how long it’d been sitting on the floor, wondered why the guard hadn’t roused him, wondered if he’d been lying on the cot the way he’d wakened when the food was brought.

Everything on the tray was cold. He ate it anyway, not caring about taste, texture, or temperature. He thought while he chewed, and though it didn’t make any rational sense, he knew that whatever had happened, Sandburg had caused it.

The guard came for the tray a few minutes later. If he’d noticed Jim’s state of undress earlier, he didn’t say anything about it. As soon as Jim was sure he was out of earshot, he went back to the door and called out to Sandburg again, in an urgent hiss asking again what had happened, how long he was out.

Sandburg answered, but stayed out of sight.

“You weren’t out exactly. And it was only a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours!’ Jim exclaimed disbelievingly through clenched teeth. “Not exactly? What the hell does that mean? I don’t get it. How?”

Jim could hear Blair sigh deeply before he answered. He sounded purposefully detached, but spoke intently.

“I can control sentinels. I can help them hone their senses, and I can turn their senses against them.”

Blair came to the door then. He turned his face so his left cheek was visible through the slit. A lone fingertip followed the path of the scars, slowly tracing the patterns.

Jim went silent, breathing slow and heavy through his nose as he watched, unable to draw his gaze away as Blair continued speaking.

“The marks tell what I am.”

Then he turned his head again and looked at Jim. His voice was flat, non-threatening, but it still sent shivers down Jim’s spine.

“Alex Barnes was a sentinel too. She recognized the marks. She thought she knew what they meant. But she didn’t.”

“Blair, I---,” Jim started, and then stopped. He wasn’t sure what to say, what he could say. Blair Sandburg suddenly seemed much more dangerous than he ever could have imagined.

“Jim, I let you fuck me,” Blair stated matter-of-factly. He chuckled and his eyes crinkled. “After what just happened do you believe I could’ve stopped you?”

Jim just nodded mutely.

“What does that tell you?” Blair pressed, amusement now in his voice as well as his eyes.

“That you wanted me to?” Jim ventured unsurely.

“Bingo!” Blair replied merrily. “So let’s cut the who’s top dog crap, ‘k?”

Jim’s mind was reeling from Sandburg’s oscillating verbal onslaught. He felt as if he was skating on thin ice and it was starting to give way. The realization of what Sandburg could do to him, could’ve done already and hadn’t, hit him full force.

“You said, out in the yard, that I’m not alone anymore,” Jim said by way of an answer, latching onto the promise he’d heard in those words, the shared desperation he’d felt.

“Yeah?” Blair replied.

“What did you, I mean, what I mean is,” Jim floundered and then yielded in a cracked whisper, “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“Follow my voice, Jim,” Blair whispered in a silky cadence, leaving him no choice. “Follow it to my heartbeat, to my scent.”

It took no effort on Jim’s part.

He could hear Blair’s heart and then he could smell him too. Not the outer scents of dirt and sweat and dried blood from Blair’s fat lip, but the real scents.

“I want you to feel me now Jim,” Blair directed. “I want you to follow my voice and track my scent to my cock. Let your senses overlay each other so that scent becomes touch.”

God, it was so easy, Jim thought dreamily. He turned slowly and felt himself sliding slowly to the floor, the cool metal of the door licking his bare back.

Jim felt lightheaded, but totally grounded and in control even as he involuntarily did as Blair commanded. He unzipped his fly, not sure if it was his wish or Blair’s, but not caring either way. It was Blair’s hot pulsing flesh he felt as he stroked his own cock. He smelled the reek of their combined lust coil though the air and sting his nostrils. He stuck his tongue out and ran it slowly over his lips and then thrust it out, questing.

His fist tightened around his cock and he pumped it hard. He squeezed his eyes shut as his head jerked upward, arching his neck and back. His buttocks tensed and clenched as they ground into the floor.

“Taste me,” Blair growled in his ear.

And Jim knew Blair must’ve come because he could taste his spunk as it spilled over his hand and found its way to Jim through the hot, sticky feel of it and the bitter, tangy smell of it, as his senses gathered it all to him.

He jacked himself to quick completion and slumped, breathlessly, against the wall. His head fell to the side and he closed his eyes. It was quiet for a long time and he wondered if it was because he’d passed out, or hadn’t passed out…exactly…as Blair had put it.

He decided he really needed to have Blair explain that strange remark more thoroughly, and added it to the list of things they had a lifetime to talk about, putting it right at the top.

There were noises coming from Blair’s cell. A chant maybe, soft murmurs, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t make out what was being said and finally shrugged it off.

A buzzer sounded in several short, ear-splitting blasts and Jim winced, covering his ears. The guard would be making the night check soon and then it’d be lights out.

He dragged himself to his feet and shoved his pants off his hips, letting them drop to the floor in a smelly, wrinkled heap. He stepped out of them and kicked them to the side. He lumbered to the sink and cleaned up.

Blair stopped chanting and Jim picked up the sounds of him moving about his cell, a bit sprightlier than himself it would seem, which ended up irritating him. At which point he wondered why he wasn’t a hell of lot more irritated than he was, period.

He shook his head and stalked to the door. He glanced to the right first, and saw the guard getting ready to enter the block. When he turned back, ready to holler for Sandburg, and the guard be damned if he came off sounding threatening, Blair was watching him.

It was an odd look that was being leveled at him. Not whacked out, or demented, but not all there either. Jim could see just the very top of the ridged scar lines, pearly-white pink, just under his left eye, giving that eye an almost purplish hue in the harsh glare of the cellblock’s light.

Blair spoke: cutting off anything Jim was going to say. And this time the words didn’t sound promising or desperate, or compassionate. But they were definitely sincere…and cold, and brutal.

“You’re not alone anymore Jim.”

~*~*~

Six months later ~

Jim hurled the ball at one of the convicts standing courtside waiting their turn as he loped off the court, he and Moe having just trounced Larry and Curly once again in a little two on two. He slapped his opponents on the back and belittled their skill at hoops good-naturedly. They looked affronted, for show, and put in a few barbs of their own regarding Jim’s unfair advantage before shuffling off along with Moe to confer with a few of their cronies.

Grabbing the towel he’d left hanging on the rail of the bleachers, Jim flipped it over his head and around his neck as he bounded upward to where Blair was seated. Not on the very top bench, but the one just below.

Blair was reading, something he spent a lot of his free time doing, and his glasses had inched down his nose as usual. He’d earned privileges fairly quickly after that stint in the hole. And he used as much of it as possible in the prison library.

The glasses gave him a weird cerebral air, and Jim liked the look.

Jim sat; easing himself gently and fidgeting restlessly for a bit on the rough, weathered wood. They each sat gingerly now and then, Blair a bit more often than Jim. But that was only because they both liked the feel of Blair’s braid in Blair’s ass.

He used the ends of the towel to mop the sweat from his neck and face as he nudged Blair’s thigh with his knee.

“Deak won’t be coming back,” Blair said off-handedly, not looking up. “Hard to believe anyone could be that clumsy.”

Jim gazed off toward the mountains. He squinted his eyes, wrinkled his nose, and twisted his lips into a tight scrunch.

“Yeah, hard to believe,” he agreed dispassionately. “A real shame.”

“Stop that,” Blair scolded, his nose still in the book on his lap.

Jim immediately relaxed his eyes, and then the rest of his face, and continued scanning the distance.

“That’s four, right?” Jim asked. He slipped the towel off his neck and ran it across the top of his head, scrubbing vigorously for a moment, then tossed it aside.

“Yes,” Blair agreed absently as he turned a page. “Oh, this is interesting,” he said, glancing quickly at Jim and then at the page in front of him. “We’ll have to give this a try.” He waggled his eyebrows and Jim chuckled.

“What’re you reading now? The Kama Sutra for Lifers?” Jim quipped and he tapped the book.

Blair held the book up so Jim could see the cover. He looked down his nose, over the top of his glasses, at Jim, waiting for the reaction.

Jim groaned on cue.

“You found another book on tribal cultures in that shitty excuse for a library?” he asked skeptically.

Blair nodded, grinning. “Yup, and it’s got a some really good stuff on warrior rituals, and medicine men, and cocksuckers---,”

After numerous failed attempts by Jim to learn to say sentinel correctly in Moe’s language, and confessing to Blair what he’d thought they’d been saying all along, Blair had glibly adopted Jim’s misnomer.

Jim shoved the book back toward Blair, causing him to lose his place. He puffed himself up and gave Blair a wicked long leer.

“You are such a dick Ellison,” Blair retorted dryly. “What’ve you heard?” he asked, changing subjects and steering them back to his original line of thought. “Or seen?”

“Four down, one or two to go. But,” Jim paused and wagged his head back and forth thoughtfully. “Moe thinks it might not be necessary.”

“All right, we’ll wait then, see how it goes,” Blair said after a moment’s consideration. He put his book down and joined Jim in watching the mountains.

They sat quietly for a while and then Jim, out of the blue, turned to Blair and said, “I know we’ve got all day, Chief, but I’m only going to say this once. I love you.”

“Once is enough Jim,” Blair assured him. He didn’t return the sentiment. He didn’t need to. He said it quite often, in a hundred different ways.

The yard-in claxon sounded. They stood, flexed and stretched, and then Blair tucked his book under his arm and they trotted down off the bleachers.

Blair turned his head; Jim took hold of his braid and led him away.

The End

** All Day – Prison slang for life sentence.


End file.
